I liked it. I was disappointed that it did so poorly at the BO (AWFUL legs). Those damn false advertisements. In spite of that, I thought it was a well acted movie, especially on behlf of Bryce Dallas Howard. A few gripes with the plot, and the I wouldn't have expected the twist. Someone spoiled it for me, though, so I couldn't tell you, but I think if I had gone in unspoiled it would have remained a surprise. A very clear message about the pains of the world and what people do to avoid them. I enjoyed it a lot. I still need to see it a second time.

B+

I'm in the minority here, but I loved The Village. Maybe it was good to see it knowing the twist way ahead of time and having no expectations. Interesting story, beautiful score and cinematogrophy and great acting. Even knowing things weren't what they seem, Shymalan creates a great atmosphere of suspense. And of course what can I say that hasn't been said about Bryce Dallas Howard? My one disappointment was I expected Joaquin Phoenix to have more screen time, but his performance is very good. I love the scene on the porch. My grade: A.

Quite suspenseful, and the twist at the end is ingenious. Sure, it isn't very scary, but it's well made and executed, and features a very strong performance from Bryce Dallas Howard. Very underrated film.

A-

This movie is so underrated. Falsely advertised as a thriller, this romantic drama has great performances and a fascinating story. Bryce Dallas Howard gives one of the best female performances of the year.

8/10 (B+)

Pretty much the worst film of 2004...well close to the worst.

My initial response after seeing this for the first time last week was that this was the worst film of 2004. But afterwards, I kind of re-watched/fast-fwd through the movie with the ending in mind and it wasn't as bad. The problem with this film is that it only works on one level, only when you know the twist at the end and then can appreciate the allusions and development. Without the knowledge of the twist, this movie is unwatchable even as a drama. It's like because Shymalan already knows the twist when he is making it, he doesn't know how dull and pointless it functions as a standalone period piece. C-.

The Village:

By: baumer

There have been a plethora of opinions espoused about The Village. Some positive, some negative, and some very ambivalent. There are those that love this film and others call it the antithesis to what made Shyamalan famous revered by critics and film lovers.
The difficulty in reviewing a film like The Village is that there is an incredibly fine line between reviewing the film in terms of how well it was made and reviewing the film in terms of how utterly contemptible it is towards it's target audience. The first question you have to ask yourself is if this is a well-made film? The answer to that question is as vexing and vacillating as you can get when discussing film. What is well made? Is it when you use your palette of colour schemes impressively? Is it when you get some nice performances out of your cast? Is it when the musical score is unobjectionable? And if it is an amalgamation of all of these things, then The Village is a well-made film. But if what you are looking for in a film is something more sophisticated and shrewd from a man like Shyamalan, then The Village is an absolute abomination. It is nothing but a cunning, duplicitous charlatan that when viewing the film I honestly thought that I mistakenly heard that Shyamalan was the man behind this film.
To cut to the chase, this is one of the three worst films of this summer, only being surpassed thus far by the catholically and universally accepted fetidness of Catwoman. The Village in some ways is worse than Catwoman because it tricks you into believing that you are about to see one movie when you are really in store for another.
The Village goes into new depths of purgatory from a marketing standpoint. When filmmakers and studios can lie to you about what you are to see, then we have reached a new low in the entire art and business of film. I didn't go into Alien vs. Predator expecting to see a story about aristocracy of Old England and I didn't go into The Village expecting to see nothing but a nostrum of monumental proportions. While Catwoman is a poorly made film by a man with one name, The Village is almost worse because the man with three names is synonymous with the pinnacle of the craft. Regrettably, The Village is nowhere near brilliant. Sadly, it almost at the other end of the axis. The Village is terrible. And there is no getting around it.

The Village begins with the townsfolk attending a funeral of one of the young boys of The Village. He was seven years old and by the engraving on his gravestone, we can see that the film takes place in the very late 1800s.
The Villagers are a very simple and peaceful people and they keep to themselves. They refute any outside influence and have chosen to live in seclusion. This seems to work for them and the nearest town is miles away. They farm, they dance, and they live in a harmonious concord
. But of course there is one problem; the uneasy truce they have with the entities in the woods. There has been an ostensible truce between the villagers and the entities in the woods for years and their kinds do not mix. The villagers stay out of the woods and the entities stay out of the village. There are certain precautions that must be taken by the villagers that include a watchtower that is occupied at night and the colour red must never be seen by the entities in the woods as it apparently attracts and angers the woodsmen.

Harmony is omnipotent in the village until suddenly animals are found skinned and when one of the villagers has gone into the woods. The village's remuneration for their pretentious and defying act is a midnight visit by the beasts. Everyone runs for cover and this is the one and only moment of laconic tension. By this point in the film, it has crawled along at a snail's pace and we are ripe for some Carpenteresque type of tension. When this finally transpires, we think that the film is ready to take us into the realm of ambiguity that consistently graces Shyamalan's films. But what transpires next is a mendaciously misleading series of events that can do nothing to disguise the machination that Shyamalan set out with in the first place. We thought were walking into a horror film that would make the hair stand on the back of your neck, the way Sixth Sense did and the way that Signs did sporadically. But what we get instead is nothing but a quack job that cons us out of our money.

Shyamalan is synonymous with "twist endings". To borrow a line from Spiderman, that is his gift to us and also his curse. With great power comes great responsibility and Night has abused that power. He might have had noble intentions when he wrote this film as many have discussed the symbolism of the red flags and bad colours and the implied danger inherent in this film, and if that is what you enjoy, a subliminal film that lectures us and works as a parable, then by all means, pay your ten bucks and go see this film.
But if you were hoping to be enthralled by an ostensible master of modern suspense and horror, then you are going to be disappointed. Shyamalan has given us nothing here but an amateurish picture so engrossed in sanctimonious and implied admonitions that he forgot to make the film entertaining and suspenseful. The Village is one of the most absurd films loaded with esoterica and it is ultimately is an ambitious but colossal failure. The "twist" or "twists" in the film produced gales of laughter from the theatre I was in and it carried over as the audience left the theatre.
For a sheer waste of money, see The Village. For a film that had such pedigree to it, it is one of the all time disappointments. Signs is a poorly written but intermittently frightening film. The Village takes several steps back for a man of Shyamalan's stature and reputation. Let's hope the next M. Night Shyamalan film is better than the last two because his statute of limitations on creating disappointing films just dropped significantly.

3/10

Sooo after my second viewing I'm still in love with this film. A/A-

B+

The Village is a very good film, not as brilliant as say Unbreakable, but a great one all the same. I believe that if it wasn't so mismarketed, the WOM and hate wouldn't have risen so high. I felt the message in this story was a touching one, and the idea and concept behind it is very strong and original. The ensemble cast rises to the occasion with Howard being amazing, and the sense of tension is very well directed. I think The Village will always be seen as an abomination below the first 3 Shamalyan flicks, but in that way it can be appreciated as the gem the audience missed. I liked it a lot.

I own this movie, but have never watched it. I need to watch it so I can decide which side of the fence I am on. The its a great movie on, or this movie sucks ass.

I heard a rumor of the original ending to the film that was circulating around about six months before the film came out. I, too, thought it was ridiculous but later heard that it had been scrapped for something else.

It turned out that the one I'd read had more or less remained in tact, so my surprise when viewing the film wasn't how ridiculous I thought the ending was -- like most people -- but rather how well I thought they'd pulled off something that I thought might prove otherwise impossible.

So maybe that's why I was enthralled by it rather than appalled by its implausibility: I didn't come out of the film thinking "Wow, that really could have happened!" but rather admiring it as a sort of fantasy propelled by beautiful settings and great performances (Bryce Dallas Howard's performance is still one of my favorites of recent years).

So I guess that's what has ultimately led me to regard The Village as one of my favorite films: My expectations were not only different from others (in that I was not expecting big scares and gore, because really, has Shyamalan ever given us that before?) but also impossibly low (my knowledge of re-shoots and highly negative reviews). And I'm still of the opinion that the best filmgoing experiences are those in which expectations are blown out of the water. And mine certainly were.

A

A rich, thematic movie that chooses to be a character study rather than a typical horror film. Shyamalan is a master behind the camera, with beautiful cinematography, lush camera movements, and some tense scenes. Both the score (beautiful) and Bryce Dallas Howard are brilliant. I was overtaken by the atmosphere. James Newton Howard created one of his best pieces of work, I believe, and Howard felt 100% genuine throughout the entire movie. The sequence when the monsters are invading the village and we see Lucius hold out his hand for Ivy was an incredible sequence. The combination of direction, music, and performance made for a beautiful moment. In the end, it was a strong character piece immersed in a story of romance and mystery, and despite a few things (such as the old english language, which was awkward sometimes) this film was very impressive.

A-

PEACE, Mike.

Criminally underrated thriller. Sure, the story has its flaws. Sure, it's not really a horror. Sure, the twists are gimmicky. But this is an expertly crafted, emotionally satisfying, and incredibly thematic film. As one can expect from a Shyamalan film, the direction is near-flawless, and this is particularly evident in the true horror scenes in the film, the attack sequences. Without using cheap 'jump' scares, Shyamalan makes a scene scary and suspenseful through some terrific shot placements and effective cinematography. The music contributes quite a bit, too, as James Newton Howard adds another great score to his resume. Though the story is flawed, it's still very well-written, faltering only in certain plot mechanics; though the dialogue may turn off some, I really dug its stylized nature. The romance feels natural and works very well as the central plot device, and the main twist, though quite a leap of logic, brings up some important themes. The acting is very good, with no weak links, but a clear strong link in Bryce Dallas Howard - she's a revelation. Add in to that some great costume and production design, and you've got an absolutely fantastic film.

This has evolved into my second favorite Shamalayn film behind Unbreakable, I think my grade would be about an A- now.

The whole thing felt like a bad local production play and has some of the laziest scriptwriting i've ever seen. An absolute trial to watch.

D

you obviously didn't understand the film, not surprising though

B

Damnit, who allowed you internet access from the Village

F

Quite possibly the worst films i've ever seen. a lazy mess from start to finish.

It's a good movie with good acting, though some of the material (particularly Adrien Brody as the mentally challenged villager) didn't work well at all. It was clearly mismarketed, but there is tension in the scenes where Shamalayan chooses to use it. The twist isn't a shocker, but it provides something to think about after the movie has ended. Not one of Shamalayan's best, but far from the depths he has sunk to in the past couple years. B

This was a lot slower paced than Shyamalan's previous efforts, but I don't think the twist is stupid like so many do. I enjoyed it for the most part, and still found it a more satisfying experience than the Sixth Sense.

B